The cameras were rolling and one of Hollywood's biggest producers was watching. And on Thursday, an excited group was auditioning for what could be this summer's hottest feature: Malibu beach-going. Coastal-access advocates set foot on the sand at Tinseltown titan David Geffen's sprawling beachfront estate, some for the first time, celebrating the opening of a 9-foot-wide public pathway to the ocean.

The northbound lanes of Pacific Coast Highway were closed Tuesday by a landslide between Coastline Drive and Topanga Canyon Boulevard, but traffic was still getting through, Caltrans officials said. The northbound lanes will remain closed until further notice, but temporary concrete barriers were placed in the median to route all traffic to the southbound lanes, which will allow one lane of traffic in each direction.

Malibu Canyon Road reopened Saturday after being closed for almost a week because of storm-related rockslides and mudslides. It had been closed from Civic Center Way to Piuma Road while authorities cleared a big pile of rocks, boulders and other debris, said Menerva Ariki, spokeswoman for the county Public Works Department.

For a while, after a big rock at Big Rock closed Pacific Coast Highway, the pace of life in Malibu just seemed to change. It felt, some residents said, like a flashback to the '70s, before massive mansions and congestion came to town. "It's like the old days!" said Rich Davis, 72, a surfer and development consultant who has lived in Malibu for 44 years. "This keeps people out."

This isn't one of those development stories with an easy bad guy. There is no big-box retailer looking to grab a corner of Main Street; no mega homebuilder trying to pave a mountainside. Instead, this is a feud that pits blind kids against a rare fish in a gorgeous canyon of giant oaks and sycamores high above the beach near Malibu. On one side of the canyon is the Foundation for the Junior Blind, which is hoping to renovate and expand its longtime summer camp.

Malibu residents do not have the right to vote down a state-imposed coastal land-use plan, a state appellate court ruled Monday. Allowing "local voters to overturn state enactments would upend our government and invite chaos," the 2nd District Court of Appeal said. It suggested that the city ask the California Coastal Commission to amend the coastal plan to be "more of Malibu's liking."

A Superior Court judge has tossed out a lawsuit brought by homeowners at Malibu's Broad Beach who claimed the California Coastal Commission had devised an illegal scheme to require public access to their oceanfront lots without payment. The commission is pushing for public access to the beach, removal of "Private Property" signs and a halt to motorized security patrols. Judge James C.

Launching a summer campaign on behalf of public sunbathing, the California Coastal Commission has targeted one of Malibu's most exclusive strands -- Broad Beach -- ordering an end to no-trespassing signs and security guards on all-terrain vehicles who shoo visitors off the dry sand. The commission, established decades ago to protect public beach access, has demanded that homeowners remove the "Private Property, Do Not Trespass" signs in the sand.

Malibu's City Council has passed a resolution opposing two massive liquefied natural gas projects in the Santa Barbara Channel, echoing similar protests by cities near other proposed LNG facilities. Although Malibu has no jurisdiction over the proposed projects, bitter local opposition has recently sunk LNG proposals in a number of locations, including Eureka in Northern California and Harpswell, Maine.

The Malibu Water Quality Conference's primary goal on Saturday was to explore ways to prevent water pollution from fouling the coastline. The secondary goal was to be polite. "This is honestly the first time that these people have been able to get into a room together and not almost come to blows," said David Nahai, a member of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board and one of the organizers of the event at Pepperdine University.